Summer Holiday 2012 - Part 1: Edinburgh
Monday, 9 July 2012 21:40![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iguanaEmily and I went on Holiday last week! We visited Edinburgh from Sunday until Wednesday, and the tidal island of Lindisfarne in Northumberland from Wednesday until Saturday.
Sunday
The train journey to Edinburgh took about five hours from Kings Cross, where we saw a steam train on Platform 0. On the train, Emily taught me how to play Countdown Whist, a game which takes rather a lot of strategy and concentration.
We arrived in Edinburgh around 1700 and checked into our apartment, Fountain Court, which Emily had found a deal for on Tripadvisor so we paid only a fraction of the advertised rates. The apartment was amazing, but the weather was also stunning that evening, so we decided to do the first thing on our list: climbing Arthur's Seat, the 250m high point of Holyrood Park.
We reached the peak at around 2130 and had time to marvel at the view over Edinburgh before watching the sun set over the Firth of Forth at around 2200. We saw a lot of wild rabbits, and on the way down we took a rest, lying on the carpet-soft hillside.
Once we reached the base of the hills, we walked back past the Scottish Parliament building, along Royal Mile and over North Bridge back to our place in the New Town area.
Monday
We got up fairly late after getting back at around midnight, and decided to skip breakfast in favour of a hearty lunch - quite literally in my case, since we decided upon haggis, neeps and tatties. (Emily had the vegetarian version, nuttier but with the same spices.) It's not the first time I've had haggis (I'm rather keen on it) but insisted on having it while we were in Scotland.
Monday was the only day of the entire holiday that it rained, and we decided to do the most touristy thing in Edinburgh - visiting Edinburgh Castle.
The castle is built into Castle Rock, the remains of a volcanic pipe from an extinct volcano. It towers over Edinburgh and can be seen from practically everywhere in the city (even in the centre of the third photo above, although it looks rather diminutive from the top of Arthur's Seat).
The inside of the castle was mostly disappointing ("Here is where people PERISHED during a SIEGE!!") but one interesting thing there was that the Honours of Scotland (the equivalent of the English Crown Jewels) are on public display there. The Crown, Sceptre and Sword looked as you'd expect, but I noticed that in the glass cabinet there was also a large stone block, which we asked one of the guards about, who told us that it was the Stone of Scone (pronounced Scoon), which is used (and will continue to be used as long as Scotland recognises the UK monarch as its Head of State) during each coronation - it is placed under the throne.
After getting back to Princes Street Gardens and failing to acquire Afternoon Tea from the Jenners department store, we decided to climb up the Scott Monument, a monument built in the 1840s dedicated to Sir Walter Scott. Charles Dickens said of it, "I am sorry to report the Scott Monument a failure. It is like the spire of a Gothic church taken off and stuck in the ground." Personally, I rather liked it. The monument is open to the public to climb to the very top, up several flights of spiral staircases. The staircases get gradually thinner until, by the time you reach the top, you barely fit through them!
In the evening we relaxed back at the apartment, watching a couple of episodes of Arrested Development while munching pizza.
Tuesday
We started off with breakfast at Centotre, fulfilling our second food todo item - porridge, Scottish style (served salty rather than sweet). We also discovered their amazing Italian hot chocolate served with whipped cream. Literally the best hot chocolate I've tasted. Between those two, we definitely had enough energy for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon too!
After breakfast, we strolled along the Water of Leith riverside walkway, from Millers Lane in Dean Village (a nearby suburb) to the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens. The waterway was a lovely walk, filled with the splashing sounds of the Leigh flowing over rocks.
The Botanic Gardens were also really lovely to walk around. There were massive hedgerows, vegetable plots, a fossilised tree trunk, a Japanese garden and rock gardens.
There was also a large cluster of greenhouses, filled with exotic flowers, plants, and ivies.
We finished looking around at around quarter to three and took a short bus trip back to Frederick Street, where Eteaket fulfilled our final culinary wishlist item for Edinburgh: Afternoon Tea. Between us we had a massive platter of smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, scones, fairy cakes, and pastry desserts, served with our choice of tea: I had a peach ceylon mix, which was very fruity, and Emily had Oriental Oolong.
So that kept us going for the rest of the day!
We went to Calton Hill for the rest of the afternoon, an interesting collection of monuments on abeachhilltop that looks like they might've been placed there by a massive alien collector. They include the National Monument, an incomplete copy of the Parthenon; Nelson's Monument, a 30m-high tower; and the City Observatory. It's a nice walk up a grassy hill to get there.
Nelson's Monument is open to the public for a couple of pounds, so naturally we climbed up the spiral staircase to the viewing balcony. Strangely, I felt more vertigo here than anywhere else we'd been, perhaps due to the dead vertical drop outside in contrast to Arthur's Seat and the Scott Monument. The balcony was also not very deep.
My knees played up for the first and only time on the way down the staircase, so I went back to the apartment and put my feet up while Emily went out to walk the Salisbury Crags adjacent to Arthur's Seat (on the right in the photos above). The walk took her along Radical Road and to the peak, which I think is called Cat Nick, amusingly.
Wednesday
This was our last day in Edinburgh, and we finished off this part of our holiday with another round of hot chocolate and porridge from Centotre - at 8:30 it was a lot quieter than on Tuesday. We had sweet (normal!) porridge this morning, then checked out of the apartment before heading to Edinburgh station. We caught the fairly early 10:10 to Berwick-upon-Tweed, in order to get to Lindisfarne before the tide came in!
So, overall, I really enjoyed our trip to Edinburgh, which had a completely different atmosphere to any other city I know - especially London. The city is quiet, even during weekdays, very green (even discounting the always-visible Holyrood Park), and very spacious in the New Town area where we stayed. We both rather fell in love with the place.
We didn't see the Doctor, Amy, or Rory while we were there, but we have good reason to believe they had dropped by!
Coming soon: Part 2: Lindisfarne.
Sunday
The train journey to Edinburgh took about five hours from Kings Cross, where we saw a steam train on Platform 0. On the train, Emily taught me how to play Countdown Whist, a game which takes rather a lot of strategy and concentration.
We arrived in Edinburgh around 1700 and checked into our apartment, Fountain Court, which Emily had found a deal for on Tripadvisor so we paid only a fraction of the advertised rates. The apartment was amazing, but the weather was also stunning that evening, so we decided to do the first thing on our list: climbing Arthur's Seat, the 250m high point of Holyrood Park.
We reached the peak at around 2130 and had time to marvel at the view over Edinburgh before watching the sun set over the Firth of Forth at around 2200. We saw a lot of wild rabbits, and on the way down we took a rest, lying on the carpet-soft hillside.
Once we reached the base of the hills, we walked back past the Scottish Parliament building, along Royal Mile and over North Bridge back to our place in the New Town area.
Monday
We got up fairly late after getting back at around midnight, and decided to skip breakfast in favour of a hearty lunch - quite literally in my case, since we decided upon haggis, neeps and tatties. (Emily had the vegetarian version, nuttier but with the same spices.) It's not the first time I've had haggis (I'm rather keen on it) but insisted on having it while we were in Scotland.
Monday was the only day of the entire holiday that it rained, and we decided to do the most touristy thing in Edinburgh - visiting Edinburgh Castle.
The castle is built into Castle Rock, the remains of a volcanic pipe from an extinct volcano. It towers over Edinburgh and can be seen from practically everywhere in the city (even in the centre of the third photo above, although it looks rather diminutive from the top of Arthur's Seat).
The inside of the castle was mostly disappointing ("Here is where people PERISHED during a SIEGE!!") but one interesting thing there was that the Honours of Scotland (the equivalent of the English Crown Jewels) are on public display there. The Crown, Sceptre and Sword looked as you'd expect, but I noticed that in the glass cabinet there was also a large stone block, which we asked one of the guards about, who told us that it was the Stone of Scone (pronounced Scoon), which is used (and will continue to be used as long as Scotland recognises the UK monarch as its Head of State) during each coronation - it is placed under the throne.
After getting back to Princes Street Gardens and failing to acquire Afternoon Tea from the Jenners department store, we decided to climb up the Scott Monument, a monument built in the 1840s dedicated to Sir Walter Scott. Charles Dickens said of it, "I am sorry to report the Scott Monument a failure. It is like the spire of a Gothic church taken off and stuck in the ground." Personally, I rather liked it. The monument is open to the public to climb to the very top, up several flights of spiral staircases. The staircases get gradually thinner until, by the time you reach the top, you barely fit through them!
In the evening we relaxed back at the apartment, watching a couple of episodes of Arrested Development while munching pizza.
Tuesday
We started off with breakfast at Centotre, fulfilling our second food todo item - porridge, Scottish style (served salty rather than sweet). We also discovered their amazing Italian hot chocolate served with whipped cream. Literally the best hot chocolate I've tasted. Between those two, we definitely had enough energy for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon too!
After breakfast, we strolled along the Water of Leith riverside walkway, from Millers Lane in Dean Village (a nearby suburb) to the Edinburgh Royal Botanic Gardens. The waterway was a lovely walk, filled with the splashing sounds of the Leigh flowing over rocks.
The Botanic Gardens were also really lovely to walk around. There were massive hedgerows, vegetable plots, a fossilised tree trunk, a Japanese garden and rock gardens.
There was also a large cluster of greenhouses, filled with exotic flowers, plants, and ivies.
We finished looking around at around quarter to three and took a short bus trip back to Frederick Street, where Eteaket fulfilled our final culinary wishlist item for Edinburgh: Afternoon Tea. Between us we had a massive platter of smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, scones, fairy cakes, and pastry desserts, served with our choice of tea: I had a peach ceylon mix, which was very fruity, and Emily had Oriental Oolong.
So that kept us going for the rest of the day!
We went to Calton Hill for the rest of the afternoon, an interesting collection of monuments on a
Nelson's Monument is open to the public for a couple of pounds, so naturally we climbed up the spiral staircase to the viewing balcony. Strangely, I felt more vertigo here than anywhere else we'd been, perhaps due to the dead vertical drop outside in contrast to Arthur's Seat and the Scott Monument. The balcony was also not very deep.
My knees played up for the first and only time on the way down the staircase, so I went back to the apartment and put my feet up while Emily went out to walk the Salisbury Crags adjacent to Arthur's Seat (on the right in the photos above). The walk took her along Radical Road and to the peak, which I think is called Cat Nick, amusingly.
Wednesday
This was our last day in Edinburgh, and we finished off this part of our holiday with another round of hot chocolate and porridge from Centotre - at 8:30 it was a lot quieter than on Tuesday. We had sweet (normal!) porridge this morning, then checked out of the apartment before heading to Edinburgh station. We caught the fairly early 10:10 to Berwick-upon-Tweed, in order to get to Lindisfarne before the tide came in!
So, overall, I really enjoyed our trip to Edinburgh, which had a completely different atmosphere to any other city I know - especially London. The city is quiet, even during weekdays, very green (even discounting the always-visible Holyrood Park), and very spacious in the New Town area where we stayed. We both rather fell in love with the place.
We didn't see the Doctor, Amy, or Rory while we were there, but we have good reason to believe they had dropped by!
Coming soon: Part 2: Lindisfarne.
